Harry and Pansy Go To Brighton
by empathapathique
Summary: Spontaneity," he'd said. "Be spontaneous." But he had rented a car, she'd told herself. That counted for something, at least. Harry and his main squeeze take a trip to the beach.


Title: Harry And Pansy Go to Brighton

Author: Empath Apathique

Word count: 3920

Note: For my love, somandalicious on LJ. Enjoy. As always, major thank you to floorcoaster, who makes my bad fanfiction shine with her editing expertise. You are my light in darkness. You _make_ me. For serious.

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Pansy extended her foot, the aged wood of the dock beneath her creaking as she moved. The dock looked old enough to have been built by Merlin or Morgana Le Fay, but it was sturdy enough, she supposed. She'd made sure of it; she'd insisted Harry cast a fortifying charm on each of the beams before she'd set foot onto the thing, rolling her eyes and ignoring his complaints that she was asking for a little much. She didn't care what he said. She hadn't wanted to come on this trip to begin with, and she had no intentions to drown while she was here.

"Brighton," he had said to her that morning. "Let's go to Brighton."

Pansy spent a moment examining her foot, brow furrowing in concentration as she carefully applied red polish to her toes. A weekend getaway was the last thing either of them needed right now. She was up to her armpits with work from uni, and he had his final Auror exams in three days. But Merlin knew that Pansy could never say no to Harry Potter. Well, she _could_, but not when his well-intended efforts fell flat on their bum and he was left staring at her pathetically.

But he had rented a car, she'd told herself. That counted for something, at least.

"Spontaneity," he'd said. "Be spontaneous."

Pansy frowned. She almost wished she hadn't told Harry about that. So what if she wasn't spontaneous anymore? She was at a place in her life where she was required to be responsible for her own wellbeing. She didn't have room for spontaneity. For Merlin's sake, she couldn't even _cook_. She had to rely on _his_ fluctuating training schedule if she wanted to get a decent meal that she didn't have to procure from Diagon Alley or, worse, Muggle London. She hadn't quite figured out the proper conversion from Galleons to pounds, and usually paid four or five times the actual cost of the meal.

"This is why you need me," he liked to say, looking at her smugly as he stood at the stove, apron hanging low on his hips as he flipped a pancake, omelet, whatever. The apron was old—a Molly Weasley reject that had found a place in Harry's home when Ginny had forgotten to take it with her after they had broken up. He kept it because he cooked, he said. He needed it, and it certainly didn't bother him that it had belonged to his ex-girl.

However, it certainly bothered Pansy. She would burn it one day, sit on his fire escape and watch it burn as she'd smoked a fag and had waited for him to come home. He'd asked about it—had held up the charred remains and had asked her what it had been all about. She'd shrugged, told him she'd been bored. He'd Banished the apron and had grumbled for an hour about hormones and women as he'd flipped pancakes and eggs and cooked her a meal, apron-less.

Pansy grinned. She certainly could never say that their relationship was boring. Not with her burning his ex-girlfriend's leftover belongings and giving him black eyes. For a former seeker, Harry had dismally slow reflexes at times. However, Pansy liked to attribute her triumph in sucker-punching her boyfriend on multiple occasions to the fact that she was a woman—more specifically, _his_ woman—and he simply never saw it coming. Pansy was no Ginny Weasley. When she got angry, she got even any which way she could, and Harry Potter simply didn't know how to deal.

She had to stop punching him, though. Harry was absolute shit at glamours, and he'd come home from work sporting the fruits of her violence more times than he should have. Granger had asked questions about them once or twice, and the last thing Pansy needed was one of Granger's lectures about why beating up Harry was bad. She knew that already. Harry didn't hit back.

Not to say that he took her abuse lying down. Harry was very adept at restraining hostile adversaries. She blamed it on his Auror training. Two seconds after punching him, she was usually pressed flat against the floor, face down, hands clasped behind her back as he told her to calm down.

Oh, but the things she'd broken in his flat. Pictures were usually the first to go flying—oftentimes those with a certain redhead smiling and waving in the frame. Pansy was quite proud to say that there were no longer any pictures of Ginny Weasley anywhere in the Potter home. She would have none of it. Not while _she_ was staying there, at least.

Pansy paused in her ministrations, looking at her half-painted nails thoughtfully. She had begun staying exclusively at Harry's flat over the past three months, a slow, steady process of edging herself into his space that had ended when he'd left her a note on the kitchen table telling her that he'd cleaned out the right side of the closet so she could "_really_ move her stuff in." She had thought that he'd been waxing sarcastic and had packed up whatever was near her in a flurry, Apparating back to her flat at the university where she didn't have to put up with Harry Potter's thinly veiled comments that she was getting far too comfortable in his space.

He'd sent Hedwig over with a letter when he'd returned home.

_Parkinson—_

_Where art thou? Am making pancakes. _

_PS: Have you seen my Ministry-issue robes?_

She'd scribbled an angry response in immediately.

_Potter—_

_Am making use of my own closet, thank you very much. Keep your space and your commitment issues. Am fine on my own._

_PS: Look in the closet, you prat._

He'd come over shortly afterwards. She'd reconfigured the wards, but he was Harry Potter. Wards were nothing to him. Besides, she had given him a key. He'd brought fresh blueberry pancakes and maple syrup, told her that she was being ridiculous and he didn't know what she meant, and bemoaned her lack of eating utensils for two people.

"This is why you're living with me," he'd said. "You don't know how to live by yourself."

And though Pansy would later blame it on her monthlies, she'd started crying right then and there, brushing off her worried boyfriend when he'd asked her what was wrong. Because—of course—he hadn't had a clue.

The pancakes had gone cold by the time she settled down, and Harry had ordered Chinese takeaway while Pansy packed her things in the bedroom—again. They'd eaten it on her trunk, sitting on it to make sure it remained shut. She hadn't been back to her flat since.

That had been two weeks ago. They'd been mutually busy during the time since, he with his training and she with school. They hadn't had time to do much but order takeaway and fall into bed together at the end of the day, giggling under the sheets as they made bad attempts at quick shags that usually ended before they truly began.

"There's just so much _stuff_," she'd told him one night in bed, head on his shoulder as she'd drowsed.

"There's a lot of stuff."

"There's no room for anything else. No fun, no spontaneity…"

She had felt him nod against her head. "We should…" His voice had trailed off as he'd fallen asleep.

Pansy had snuggled against him and let sleep claim her as well. She hadn't remembered that the conversation had taken place at all, not until he'd shown up after her class, standing in front of an unfamiliar car and demanding the return of spontaneity in their affairs.

But how spontaneous could their comings and goings truly be, if their relationship only existed away from the eyes of wizarding Britain? She'd spent an increasing amount of time at his flat as their relationship had progressed, and she was even living with him now, but that was only possible because no one knew where Harry Potter lived to stalk him, and no one cared about Pansy so long as they didn't see her doing anything wrong. The location of his flat made it easy for them to hide, as no proper wizard dared to venture so deep into Muggle London. His visits to her flat on the university campus had been easy to hide as well; Granger lived just down the hall, and if anyone saw him around, they thought he was just there to visit her. They'd spent nearly a year sneaking behind everyone's backs, she lying to her parents and he to the Weasley matriarch, hiding lest anyone discover what they were truly up to.

Still, their outings were limited to the Muggle world. They didn't go into Diagon Alley together, or any other district where there was a chance that they'd be spied by eyes quick to give Rita Skeeter a call and pass the gossip along. Harry didn't need his face splayed on _The Daily Prophet_ more than it already was, and Pansy certainly didn't need her parents breathing down her back that '_this _was what she'd been doing while they poured their money into schooling they saw as unnecessary to begin with.'

And still she'd said yes. Picking her up after class had been monumentally stupid; someone could have heard them talking and be on their way to Rita Skeeter now, and yet she had still gotten into the car. Because he was stressed and she was stressed, and even though so many things could go wrong, and Pansy would cry from all the cramming she'd have to do when they returned, it would be worth it.

It was Harry. She'd give him anything. But that was the problem sometimes. She fell into him so much—so _easily_. Their situation was too delicate for thoughtlessness. It was why, sometimes, she tried not to give him anything at all.

But it was different now. He was frighteningly close to the biggest juncture of his adult life, and even though he hadn't grabbed her and said, "Pans, doll, I'm losing my bloody mind," she knew that the stress was getting to him. He needed to get away. And she came with him; because that was the only thing she could do for him.

Pansy capped her nail polish, remembering the car ride from London. She'd become fairly familiar with motor vehicles during her time at uni, as the separation between the wizarding and Muggle worlds was thin and hard to discern in the area where she lived. Granger had one, something old and ugly that she'd found in her parents garage and had preened over when they let her have it without a question asked.

Pansy had thought it was a piece of shite—literally. Its brown paint was peeling in more places than one, and the abundance of indentations made it look like something that should be floating in a commode. She had told Granger this, but the ninny had hardly cared.

"It's my first _car_, Pansy," she had said. "I don't care _what_ it looks like!"

Too much time in front of Granger's telly had taught her that cars were a rite of passage for non-magical folk. Like a wand, but hardly as useful. Pansy didn't try to understand the phenomena further.

Pansy didn't know where Potter had learned to drive. She just knew that he could; she'd seen him driving Granger's piece of rubbish on more than one occasion. His driving was smoother, easier than Granger's. He didn't grip the steering wheel possessively with both hands, snapping lowly that she was going to start casting hexes if everyone didn't _shut up_. Granger didn't like noise when she drove.

Harry had laughed when she'd told him this. "Hermione is a… scared driver."

Whatever _that_ meant.

Harry was different though. He played the radio while he drove, humming along to the music while he steered the car with one hand and held hers with the other. He liked to talk.

"Kingsley thinks I'm ready for the test," he said while they were coasting along a country road, halfway through their trip. "Ron, though…" He grinned. "Ron's studying."

"He's not exactly made of the brightest stuff, is he?"

He glanced at her in mock defense. "That's my best mate you're talking about, Parkinson."

She yawned, sleep suddenly weighing heavily on her mind. "Wake me when we get there."

He smiled. "Of course."

She had her feet in his lap at that point, her head against the door as she slept. She woke up to him playing with them, tickling her soles lightly to get her to wake up.

"Rest stop," he said, grabbing the handle to open his door.

She thwarted him though, and jumped onto his lap and kissed him senseless. Before either had realized it, they had been going at it in a roadside motel. He only paid for three hours, and the look the lobby attendant gave her when they left made Pansy feel like an absolute tart. Especially because she forgot her knickers. Harry told her to forget them when she hadn't been able to find them under the bed. She colored slightly at the thought that the lobby attendant would.

An hour and a half drive had stretched into nearly five, and they didn't arrive in Brighton until the early afternoon. They drove by streets filled with cute, seaside stores Pansy couldn't wait to explore, and beaches teeming with the summer crowd.

"Why are you smiling?" he asked her as they drove.

"I'm just thinking," she said, smirking. "I can't wait to spend your money."

He laughed.

They were staying in a house that belonged to the relatives who'd half-starved him as a boy. It was a half-mile or so from the town, situated on a low hill with access to the old, out-of-use dock. It had been the scene of family vacations in days past, but the Dursleys hardly used it anymore; Harry's cousin had grown up and moved away, and his uncle could no longer fit into the front seat of a car to drive him and his wife down here.

"Did you ask if we could stay here?" she asked, taking his hand as he'd pulled her from the car.

He grinned. "I hardly think they'll care about something they don't know about."

Pansy's brow rose in question. "I daresay this is underhanded of you, sir. What ever will your fan club think of you?"

"Now?" he said.

She nodded. "Now."

"Well…" He placed his hands on the roof of the car, trapping her within his arms. "They'd think a lot, I think."

"You're with me, after all," she'd whispered.

"I am." He leaned forward even further, his breath ghosting against the pink in her cheeks. "To hell with what they think." Her knees went weak. He kissed her.

It took an hour for the two of them to unpack, placing groceries in the fridge and the pantry and employing the bulk of the household charms they'd learned in fourth year to clear the house of dust.

"It's still completely unhygienic to sleep here," she told him, watching as he made the bed. He was certainly the domesticated one in their relationship. She hadn't quite grasped the concept of making beds manually.

"Lacking faith in your household charms?" he teased.

She glared at him. "My charms work everywhere, Harry Potter—household or no." She ran a finger over a windowpane, smudging her finger with dirt. She made a face. "This house needs to be burned."

Maybe," he said. "I spent a few summers here."

"They couldn't have been pleasant." She wiped her finger on a dusting cloth, frowning when it was still covered with dirt. "Not in this muck. It's disgusting."

He didn't responded, and it wasn't until she took note of the silence that she realized that he probably didn't have fond memories of this place at all.

"They weren't," he said finally. "The memories, I mean."

"Harry," she started.

"Come. Let's go outside."

She crossed her arms and looked at him expectantly, waiting. She'd been trying out that whole sensitivity thing Granger had told her about—especially when it came to Harry's past.

"He just needs to talk about it," Granger had said.

This, really, was contradictory to what Harry had told her himself:

"I don't want to talk about it."

Pansy hadn't quite figured out who to believe on the issue—the know-it-all, or the person actually affected by it all. But Granger had said 'need' and Harry 'want,' so perhaps they could both be right. She decided on a middle ground.

"Look," she said.

He threw a pillow at her then, grinning at her mischievously when she stared at him, shocked. "I hardly need your bad attempts at psychoanalysis via Hermione's well-meaning pep talks."

"Granger has nothing to do with this, Potter. I'm simply concerned."

He chuckled. "And _I_ secretly fancy Draco Malfoy's hair."

"What if you do? I've caught you looking at Draco a time or two. Something you need to tell me, love?"

He smiled at her, grabbing her by the waist as he'd pulled her to him. "It's not your style, Pans," he told her. She continued to frown. "I'm not saying you're a cold, uncaring—"

"Don't you _dare_ finish that sentence."

He laughed. "Listen," he said. "This is what I'm saying."

She looked at him expectantly. "I'm listening."

He grinned. "I love you."

She swatted him on the shoulder and pulled away. "I'm going outside," she said.

"You are _impossible_ to please sometimes."

"Perhaps you've simply no idea _how_ to please me."

He raised a dark brow in speculation. "Is that so?"

Pansy shrugged, and he looked positively aghast.

"You're lying."

She laughed.

He grumbled as he led her out back to the dock, his eyes lighting up when he spied an old sailboat anchored there.

"This thing," he said to her, touching the rusting stern. "It used to be amazing, Pansy."

"Really?" she remarked dryly. It was a relic, crumbling from disuse and lack of repair.

She looked at the rust heap fleetingly before sitting down.

"Uncle Vernon would take Dudley out on it all the time when we were here. They'd fish together." Harry shook his head. "Uncle Vernon wasn't much of a fisherman."

"And your cousin isn't much of anything at all."

He looked at her with a brow quirked. Pansy looked back defiantly; she'd met his cousin before. She thought Dudley Dursley was an absolute waste of space, and not even his relation to Harry Potter would make her change her mind.

"We should go out," he said suddenly, an excited light in his eyes. "On the water."

"In that thing?" Her nose scrunched in disgust.

"Live a little," he said. "When else will you get the chance to ride on something so primitive and _Muggle_?"

"That doesn't quite change my opinion, Potter. Besides, I doubt that it's safe."

"It's a boat, Pansy."

"Exactly. It's bound to be riddled with holes."

"It wouldn't float if it were," he pointed out.

"How would you know? It isn't as if you build boats for a living." He looked put out, and she sighed and said, "Ask me in an hour."

He looked, skeptical. "Will you change your mind in an hour?"

"Will you change it for me?"

He smirked at her and jumped into the boat. Pansy put on her shades and lay down on the dock. She'd fallen asleep, woken up, and had painted her nails. She hadn't seen Harry Potter since.

The sun was setting overhead, and she could feel the change in temperature as orange and pink faded into the purplish color high in the sky. The sea wind whipped through her hair, blowing inky black strands into her face. The boat rocked with the change in the tides. Overhead, a seagull called loudly as it took flight into the sky.

She wondered what he was doing. She couldn't hear anything from the boat, but she was sure he was somewhere, making the setting fit for her high-maintenance proclivities. She knew that more than an hour had passed, and she bit her lip to think of all the effort he was putting into making sure that she got on the boat with him. It was a piece of rubbish, just as Granger's car was a piece of rubbish, but just as with Granger, that didn't matter at all. He had memories of this boat. Not good ones, perhaps, as she doubted that his wicked uncle would have allowed young Harry to do anything that he may have actually found enjoyable. He'd probably spent the time his uncle and cousin were out fishing sitting in the sand watching them, longing to be apart of the activity—to have a father of his own, to take him on their own, private fishing trips—as he threw rocks into the water.

She stood all of a sudden, feeling as wicked as the uncle who hadn't taken him fishing.

"Harry," she called, receiving no answer from the direction of the boat. She took a step closer, called his name again.

"Right here," he responded from behind her. She turned to see him approaching her from along the dock, a brown grocery bag in his hands.

"When did you go into the house?" she asked.

"While you were sleeping. I finished 'death-proofing' the boat, and decided to get some things for our trip."

"Trip?" she repeated skeptically. "I thought I was just getting _on_."

"Where's the fun in that?" he asked, placing the bag in the boat. He turned and looked at her, green eyes glimmering in the dying daylight. She could see the little boy in him then, the one who threw rocks into the ocean as he longed for something more; she could see the man who randomly rented a car and picked her up after class and said, "hey, let's go to Brighton." She could see the man she loved in his eyes.

"Come," he said. "Let me change your mind."

She looked at him, the boat, and said, "But it _rocks_!" But before she knew it, she was in his arms, his lips pressed against her forehead as he chuckled.

"I'll protect you," he said, lifting her easily into his arms.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her face against his skin. She whispered "I love you" into his ear. He turned, looked down at her. "I'd have taken you fishing," she said, too quickly for it to sound natural—to sound like anything but a poor distraction from what she'd just said. "If I knew how, that is. I wouldn't have left you behind."

"You won't," he said quietly.

She nodded, eyes never leaving his. "I won't."

He kissed her forehead again. "You're hard to please sometimes," he said, shifting her in his arms. "There were holes. And dust, and spiders…"

"I'm sorry."

He shook his head. "It's worth it," he told her.

She smiled.

He carried her onto the boat.

-fin


End file.
